Pääsytunnisteena

Pääsytunnisteena refers to the concept of an access token in Finnish. An access token is a credential that is used to authenticate a user or client application to an authorization server. It is typically issued after a user has successfully authenticated and granted permission for the client application to access specific resources on their behalf.

Access tokens are a fundamental component of many modern authentication and authorization protocols, most notably OAuth 2.0. They are designed to be short-lived to reduce the security risk if a token is compromised. Once an access token is obtained, the client application can use it to make requests to resource servers, such as APIs, without requiring the user to re-authenticate for each request.

The structure of an access token can vary, but it often contains information about the user, the client application, the granted permissions (scopes), and an expiration time. This information can be encoded in various formats, such as JSON Web Tokens (JWTs), which are self-contained and can be verified by the resource server.

The primary purpose of an access token is to grant temporary, limited access to protected resources. This adheres to the principle of least privilege, ensuring that applications only have the permissions they absolutely need. When an access token expires, the client application must obtain a new one, typically by using a refresh token if one was issued during the initial authentication process. This process helps maintain security by regularly re-validating user consent and permissions.